Submitted by pinktwillshirt t3_y8xayt in Connecticut
Phantastic_Elastic t1_it3pnjd wrote
Reply to comment by Wyndeward in Why is Bob Stefanowski even running by pinktwillshirt
Your post about the declining quality of presidents is only valid if you can ignore stuff like genocide against native people, enslavement of blacks, segregation, etc. And the complexity of the role has grown exponentially since the 18th century. So no, I don't agree with your characterization. I would say generation x has been a particular disappointment to me, and that's speaking as a member of it. It's the most selfish and entitled of all of them. I also don't agree that payday loans aren't evil, and I wouldn't skip over contracting with the murderous Saudi regime either. I'm pretty sure Stefanowski will do evil if he's given the opportunity to, and I'm usually right about my gut feelings about people and politicians. And it's not even a gut feeling really ... He's already shown a willingness to do so.
Wyndeward t1_it3u2er wrote
There are a few weaknesses in your argument. Just as the Preamble talks about a "more perfect union," human nature has been being refined over the same period.
Slavery was inherited from the various colonial powers, primarily the English and the French, and individuals, both great and small, worked to end the practice as early as the start of the country, while even those who held slaves understood their own hypocrisy, such as Washington and Jefferson. Likewise, the repression and attempted extermination of the Native population had as much (if not more) to do with the greed of the electorate as that of the elected. Ironically, the original colonists thought the Native Americans were white men simply made ruddy from their exposure to the sun. I would also point out that the Natives played as much politics and silly buggers with the colonists, at least initially, as did the colonists with the Natives. The use of the Connecticut colonies as a buffer between the more aggressive Pequots and the weaker tribal nations further east by said weaker nations was just as mischievous as what the settlers did to the Natives or each other, early on. Likewise, the level of settlers friendship with the natives tended to be inversely related to the amount of gold they had.
People forget that the Native Americans had slavery, war and genocide long before the Europeans turned the North American continent into the religious equivalent of Australia. The Pequots, for example, wax poetic about "returning the land" land to the tribes that lived there before European settlers arrived, but look sheepish when you inquire how they came to live in such lands... by Pequot oral tradition, they more or less took the lands militarily, culturally obliterating the original inhabitants. Human nature is human nature, regardless of the color of one's skin. The fortunes of the African kingdom nation of Dahomey, for example, rose and fell based on the slave trade. Likewise, if you have ever seen the factor's stations in Africa, you would know that they could not have withstood the ire of the native populace, were that at least some of the tribes not fully complicit with the slave trade.
Generation X has been holding things together with duct tape and bailing wire for so long, while fully expecting to up in a puff of atomic smoke.
In what way, pray tell, are payday loans "evil?" There is no malicious intent on the part of the lender, nor do they force you to take out a loan. There is naught but greed, which is more or less amoral in nature. As for dealing with the Saudis, I would point out that most of the folks most in need of "green energy solutions" to deal with the transitions away from petrochemicals are not, shall we say, on the happy list of Amnesty International. Stupidity readily covers his willingness to do a deal with the Saudis and then run for governor.
Phantastic_Elastic t1_it444ui wrote
I've heard all these lousy excuses before, and I've heard them presented a lot more concisely. I don't like making excuses. My ancestors had little trouble differentiating right from wrong. I know when I do wrong. You wrote a lot of words there to excuse evil. Gen X are masters of excuses and moral relativism... It's odious. You probably know better too, but you would rather listen to yourself go on than actually deal with it. I'm not impressed. It takes one to know one.
Wyndeward t1_it47ehv wrote
You are confusing facts with excuses. I have excused nothing. I have merely pointed out that ignorance and stupidity, on any given day, are far more dangerous than evil. Real "evil," thank goodness, is relatively rare in this world, while stupidity is a lot like hydrogen. Evil is, to give a "for instance" that doesn't violate Godwin's Law, is Idi Amin Dada. Bob Stefanowski, while tall, which is about the best thing I can say about him, doesn't remotely rise to that level. He is a lender, not a loan shark. He doesn't use force to make loans, he doesn't use force to collect loans, he simply complies with the laws regulating his industry in this state -- laws that the politicians who claim he is "evil" have the power to correct / fix. Why don't they? If you truly believes he is "evil," then those politicians, to be frank, are complicit... or, as Burke would say, all that is required for Bob to be evil is the so-called good men who decry his business to do *EXACTLY* what they are doing... nothing.
Payday loans are the last refuge of the desperate, right up there with the lottery as a retirement scheme and playing day-trader with cash advances from your credit cards... (Yes, I had to explain that to someone some years ago, before the last housing bubble burst). That doesn't make them evil. Stupid as all hell, yes, but evil requires something more... it requires malice / malevolence... something more than plain, old-fashioned apathy and greed.
Quit pounding your shoe on the table.
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